Sneak Peek . . .

How I Became Interested in MySpace
From the Introduction

I’ve taught middle school and high school for the past eight years. Each year since 2000, I have asked my ninth-grade students to turn off their televisions, Internet, computer games, and other media for an entire week, in an effort to participate in National TV-Turnoff Week—to me, an important sociological experiment. The goal of this week is to disengage from the screen time that dominates our day and reengage with our families and friends, as well as to remember what it’s like to experience life without electronic devices. And in 2000,my students begrudgingly signed their oaths, unplugged their televisions, logged off their computers, handed their PlayStations to their younger brothers, and wept.

Talk about making a name for yourself as a teacher! Pretty soon subsequent classes were dreading that fateful week in April when I would rob them of their God-given right to entertainment and advertisements. On the whole, however, the project is always successful; most students are honest, disciplined, and surprisingly positive about the experience.

“I’ve been able to play the piano . . . I haven’t played in so long, and I forgot how relaxing it is.”

“I’ve been a lot happier these past few days, and I have to admit it feels awesome!”

“It was weird because I had no idea how much our family revolved around the TV and the computer.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m kind of glad I don’t have the TV, computer, or cell phone to distract me.”

“I would normally eat dinner in front of the TV, but instead I ate dinner with my mom and dad; it was nice.”

However, I noticed a marked change in the reaction to “no screen time” week from the 2004 through 2006 school years. While it’s always a black day when I hand out the TV-Turnoff guidelines to an angry mob of adolescents, recently the outcries have evolved from the former need for television shows (“I just have to watch The O.C.!”) to the more recent need for the Internet—specifically, for social networking. Exclamations of outrage (“She has no right to sabotage my social life like this!”) and expressions of terror (“But how will I keep in touch with my friends from Beverly Hills High?” “My grade better be A+++ for enduring this inhumane form of torture!!!”) echoed from the walls of my humble classroom and down the halls toward the gym. In fact, during last year’s TV Turnoff Week, many students flaunted “cheating”; word travels fast when students trust their teacher, and many came to me in private to rat another student out.What surprised me is that these students weren’t watching the NBA championship or the American Idol finalists.They were circulating the latest gossip on the new screen of choice, MySpace.com. While I had been well aware of the site, it wasn’t until this breach in the “no screen time” clause of TVTurnoff Week that I began to fully realize the consuming nature of this cyber-village. And I took notice.

I also took notice because fewer and fewer days would go by that didn’t end with a distraught student sitting on the floor of my office in search of advice about how to respond to various MySpace-related dilemmas. Whether it was someone “talking trash” about her, a boy removing her from his Top 8 Friends List, or her mother’s forbidding her to log on during school nights, the nature of my students’ problems was changing. And it was obvious that the problems revolved around MySpace.

What I proceeded to experience that night was a disconcerting cyber-journey. And at the time it really shocked me. Let me tell the story of a fourteen-year-old student whom I’ll call Jennifer.

Jennifer is a quiet, demure, intelligent young woman who dresses conservatively and speaks softly. She is one of the most polite students I have ever encountered. She sings in the school choir, attends a local church, and has a close relationship with her parents. However, her MySpace profile contradicted this image 180 degrees. Jennifer’s photo showed an angry young woman in full gang attire, hand signals and all. Her headline, an important signifier for teen MySpacers, was “Suck it slo, Ho!” In her brief bio, she warned “all you bitches” not to mess with her because she’s friends with “a lot of big ass nigg-uhs, ya’ll!” Her background image, or “wallpaper,” was a huge spread of musical artist and sex kitten extraordinaire Beyoncé, sporting just the right amount of sequins to showcase her bulging breasts. I scrolled down to see that she listed a fictional business that takes in over $250,000 per year called “Pimps ‘R Us.”When I finally got back into bed, I couldn’t help but wonder if I had been on the wrong MySpace page. I mean, there was no possible way that this avatar represented the Jennifer I knew each day in class. Deep inside, I knew it was true. But I was left with the nagging question: Who are these kids really?

This and many other MySpace moments have affected me in a very real way. Each day I devote myself to honest and open dialogue with my students. Nothing is more important to me professionally than fostering sincere relationships with my students. I value their thoughts, opinions, hopes, and dreams as well as their creativity, and I bank on understanding these things. After all, that is the only true way of reaching them intellectually, let alone influencing them personally. Jennifer’s portrayal of herself left me feeling confused, even bamboozled.

So began my journey into the online jungles.

back to top

What You’ll Find in This Book
From the Introduction

For those of you with full-fledged teenagers: although the angst of adolescence has not changed, your teenager lives in a world very different from the one you once knew. MTV is so yesterday, and email is clip-clopping its way into the sunset; even texting is losing its shine. If you want to know your teenager’s world, you have got to know MySpace. This book will not only peel the onion for you, it will offer you sound resources, helpful tools, wise advice, and practical strategies for dealing with your Generation MySpace teenager.

I researched this book over the course of about eighteen months. I began by collecting any and all print media on the topic—from academic texts on contemporary teen culture and technology to six months of every relevant newspaper and magazine article on MySpace and teens. (The headlines have so proliferated that I actually had to invest in an industrial-size super-binder.) In short, the behemoth that has become my research file forms the skeleton of my book. Much of what you are about to read is grounded in professional studies like the Pew Internet and American Life Surveys, live interviews with licensed psychotherapists and sociologists, conference travel, including the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign’s “Teens, Technology, and Drugs” roundtable, heartfelt vignettes from experienced parents, and candid discussions with brave and willing teens who wanted to share their online experiences.The latter are the most important.This book is the result of many years of getting to know teens, being real in their lives, and devoting my professional life to them.

As you read each chapter, you will find some common landmarks. First, you’ll hear my thoughts and observations from my work with teens. Second, you will read interviews, vignettes, blogs, and quips from teen experts, other parents, and teens themselves. Please be aware that teen names and identifying details have been changed to protect teenagers as they are minors, and while some stories are composites of several teens, all of the anecdotes are real and their relevant details are true.

You will learn when to talk to your teen and how to broach some difficult subjects, and you will be exposed to copious testimonials dealing with drugs, sex, bullying, gossip, and even suicide. Most of all, however, you will be ushered into a lively debate about your child’s privacy and your role in his or her cyber-life. In addition, this book will cover the following topics:

• Real-Life Issues Affecting Your Teen

  “Girls on MySpace are always trying to ‘sexy it out.’ My ex-girlfriend is wearing a bikini in her picture. It works. I mean, it makes you want to click on her page, ask her out, and, well, you get the point.” —Jeremy, 13

  “I regularly check my daughter’s MySpace page--and her friends’ pages, too. I don’t care what anyone thinks; she’s a child and I’m in charge of her, and I take that pretty seriously. When she’s eighteen, I’ll stop checking up on her . . . I think.” —Carla, parent

  “My daughter has accused me of stalking her; however, as I explained to her, I have a very real challenge: how can I allow her privacy and autonomy when she continually breaks our family’s Internet usage rules? I told her, ‘Until you are able to make better choices, I will continue to monitor your Internet activity.’” —Jenique, parent

• The skyrocketing craze of teen exhibitionism and voyeurism
• The emerging culture of narcissism as encouraged by the medium
• The redefining of friendship and popularity for this generation
• The pressure teens face to invent an identity online
• The sexual, bullying, and drug-friendly culture of MySpace
• The widening disconnect from reality as experienced by teens

Practical Safety Issues Facing Your Teen

• Whether you should find and assess your child’s personal web page
• How to assess your child’s involvement level and risk
• A glossary of popular IM and online slang terms, acronyms, and other online language
• How to talk successfully to your child about online social networking
• Practical steps for navigating MySpace.com
• Guidelines for blocking, monitoring, or limiting MySpace usage
• Innovative ways to protect children from Internet predators

All Is Not Bleak

Teens are resilient creatures; they (we) somehow make it through adolescence, and most of us become functioning, productive adults. And teens will survive this MySpace craze. Countless parents of teen and preteen children have expressed to me a strong desire to read a book such as this. Obviously, there is nothing more important to parents than the welfare of their children. However, a widening chasm between adolescence as experienced by the adult generation and adolescence as experienced by teenagers today is crippling multitudes of family relationships.We can be at a disadvantage when it comes to all things wireless, and often we tend to shut out or ignore that which we don’t understand, especially when the culture misleads us.This book intends to provide a prescriptive strategy to bridge the gap between you and your techsavvy children.

I hope this book will help you not only to protect your children, but to truly know them, and to fully understand the reality in which they are coming of age.

back to top